Researcher sheds new light on masculinity

IF you came up against Henry VIII at a jousting tournament, it might just have been advisable to let the king win.

IF you came up against Henry VIII at a jousting tournament, it might just have been advisable to let the king win.

It certainly proved to be a good career move for Charles Brandon - a superb jouster, able to beat all-comers except Henry, it seems. He ended up as a Duke and married the king’s sister.

This is one of the themes to emerge from a project by a University of Huddersfield researcher who is probably the first historian to make full use of the ‘score cheques’ that survive from English jousting tournaments. Emma Levitt is finding out what they reveal about the culture of masculinity and her work has already created a stir of interest at a major conference, earned an approach from a publisher and gained her a £1,000 award from the Richard III Society which will help to broaden her field of research as she works towards a PhD.